Patience: Treasuring the Ground on Which We Stand
Our ability to be both truly present to one another and aware of God’s presence in our lives is a gift unto itself. It is our calling. There’s nothing more important we can do today.
Our ability to be both truly present to one another and aware of God’s presence in our lives is a gift unto itself. It is our calling. There’s nothing more important we can do today.
They are the faces in the crowd, some standing on tiptoe to get a glimpse of this condemned prophet or rabble-rouser, take your pick, as he stands mute before the authorities, as he flinches but never complains against the searing heat of the lashes, as he bears the weight of the beam across his shoulder blades and feels the bite of the sheer mass and the splintered wood.
We all need a place to pray with others who share our faith or just to be alone with our thoughts and our God. Washington, D.C. has many such places for believers of every kind. And with the weight of the nation and the world on the shoulders of so many of these men and women, it’s a good thing.
Located between Sedona and the Village of Oak Creek is one of the region’s manmade (and woman-designed!) wonders: The Chapel of the Holy Cross.
God can never be confined to a building or to a set of beliefs. He cannot be bound even by sacred scripture and the most intimate experiences of sacrament and prayer, however real and powerful I believe those to be. He is there in those sacred moments in church, surely, but he is not limited by that experience. How could the creator of the universe be? And why would he want to be?
Whether I have been healed by God through the power of prayer or through the natural reactions of my God-gifted body, I am – for now anyway – healed. Whatever the outcome, I have been healed, for I am at peace. So for me the question remains the one posed at the top of this reflection by the great New England naturalist poet Mary Oliver, as it is should for everyone, regardless of health or healing: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
On February 24, a week and a few days after a bone marrow biopsy, I learned that I have a new, and more serious health condition than the one I have been battling over the past four years. In fact, it was the chemotherapy I received this past summer for that disease, called Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis (LCH), that is the cause of my new health challenge. Against 99 to 1 odds, the chemo seriously damaged my bone barrow to the point where I have a condition called myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS, formerly known as “preleukemia”).
Tollers’ eyes opened wide when he heard the words. He smiled a knowing smile for just an instant before lowering his head into his hands. His tears flowed freely and painfully and overwhelmingly like a cleansing, purifying flood, like a baptism of fire and rain, and for the first time in nearly a decade he knew he had found what he had been looking for.
Everybody knows that Advent is a time when we wait and prepare for the coming of Jesus at Christmas. That’s what we’ve been taught since childhood. But what does it really mean to us today if, in fact, we believe that Jesus is already here, moving and working among us? Just what are we waiting and preparing for?
So if we ever want December to become more than gift-giving season for us and our children, we need to wake up. We need to greet the season with bright eyes that remind us–and tell our children–that there’s more to it than meets the eye in the department store window.